Rockton Woman Pleads 'Guilty' In Baby Crystal Murder Case

A Winnebago County woman has pleaded guilty to leaving her newborn to freeze to death by the side of the road in 2004. 32-year-old Katie Stockton of Rockton reached a plea agreement with prosecutors this morning in the death of the infant dubbed “Baby Crystal.”

Katie L. Stockton

Credit file photo / Winnebago County Sheriff's Department

Stockton was to go to trial in Winnebago County on Monday. She avoids that by accepting the first degree murder charge: other charges against her have been dismissed. She’ll be sentenced April 15th and faces 20 to 60 years in prison.

The full-term newborn was found in a plastic bag along a road near Stockton’s parents’ house in Rockton in December 2004. It was determined the baby had been born alive. She either suffocated or died from hypothermia.

Stockton was arrested in 2009 and had entered pleas of “not guilty” to murder charges in the Baby Crystal case.

In 2010, the bodies of two other infants were found in the trunk of Stockton’s car, which had been sitting in an impound yard. No one has been charged in those cases.